JD & the JDCs

Burn This City Down (2011)

Rich Cocksedge

With a number of years and bands behind him, Jamie Delerict's latest venture sees him release this three-track EP with a youthful-looking backing band. The noticeable thing that is evident about the first track, "Burn This City Down", is that there is nothing new being put on the table. However, the track itself is fairly catchy and has quite a contagious feel to Well-played with a nice guitar sound and some decent lead work, it does manage to pique my interest. However, lyrically I find it a bit clichéd and obvious at times, which gives it a clumsiness that is only narrowly overcome by the music.

Next up is "Stupid Music Played by Idiots", which is another decent enough punk song, but it suffers again from a lack of anything really distinctive to make it stand out from the crowd.

Finally, there is a cover of the 1980s hit "We Close Our Eyes" by Go West. Apparently this was the first record Jamie bought. Now, whether or not you like pop records from the '80s (there were some pretty good ones and many not so good), this cover version is truly awful. I believe the intention was to remain as true to the original as possible, but this just seems to have been a really bad choice of song to cover and does no justice to Go West (not a sentence I ever thought I'd write!).

I would always imagine that a three-track release should highlight the best of a band's work, and if that is the case for JD & the JDCs, then it's not really a positive thing. Not a band I can see me getting excited about now or in the future.